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Diasporic Heritage in Plural: Objects from ‘Home’ at the Greek Egyptian Associations in Athens

Eftychia Mylona & Irakleitos Souyioultzoglou

In 1933, the Greeks from Egypt and Sudan (Σύλλογος των εξ Αιγύπτου και Σουδάν Ελλήνων) founded their association in Athens. From its early years, the association collected objects from Egypt, and eventually became a custodian of memorabilia (photographs, documents, athletic trophies) of the once-flourishing Greek communities in the country. Over time, and as the collection expanded, its premises were transformed into a place of curated memory; entire walls are now covered with showcases, with separate compartments dedicated to a specific community in Egypt (Fig. 1). Within each, contents are carefully arranged to highlight historical transitions and cultural resilience:  in the background, photographs that depict athletic activities and Greek clubs in Egypt serve as symbolic foundations of the contemporary diasporic identity. As the visitor’s gaze shifts to the foreground, it captures more recent memorabilia, which stand as links between past and present, and indicators of a persistent social milieu that resisted displacement.

Fig. 1. Permanent display of sports memorabilia from the Port-Said and Port-Tawfiq communities at the premises of the Association of Greeks from Egypt. Photo: Irakleitos Souyioultzoglou, September 2024.

Following Timothy Mitchell’s conceptualisation of the exhibition as a symbolic space that (re)produces meaning and stereotypes within the collective imaginary (Mitchell, 1988), photographs and sports memorabilia are here examined as constitutive elements of an ad hoc sociocultural setting that conveys the prevailing narrative of the Greek communities in Egypt.

In February 2024, the Athletic Association of Greeks from Egypt (Αθλητικός Σύλλογος Αιγυπτιωτών Ελλήνων – ΑΣΑΕ) and the Association of Greeks from Port Said and Port Fuad organised an exhibition dedicated to the communal life of Greeks in the cities of the Suez Canal. Well before its opening, a series of social media posts advertised the exhibition as an opportunity for Greeks who had spent their childhood in the region to reunite and rekindle nostalgic memories—particularly memories related to their involvement in athletic clubs and participation in sporting events. This nostalgic framing extended into the event itself: in his opening speech, the president of the association introduced the interpretive lens through which visitors were invited to experience the exhibition: its purpose, he stated, was to “showcase the vitality of the Greek community in the past, in cities that are now in the hands of the Egyptians.”

Indeed, as the visitors walked past the displays, the room filled with nostalgic sighs, enthusiastic exclamations, recalling of names, and narratives from childhoods once lived in Egypt. Clearly, the event fulfilled its aim: by placing together and carefully arranging objects invested with symbolic meaning, it turned realia into a “lieu de mémoire” (Nora, 1989) that, beyond its material substance, stands as a container of the community’s collective memory — which, in turn, serves as a common denominator of the community’s persistent and distinct identity (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. A glimpse into the exhibition celebrating the athletic performance of Greeks in Egypt. Photo: Irakleitos Souyioultzoglou, February 2024

The exhibition adheres to a symbolic pattern of rendering space into a heterotopic representation of the, by now shuttered, Greek communal space in Egypt. The lounge of the Association of Greeks from Egypt (Σύνδεσμος Αιγυπτιωτών Ελλήνων – ΣΑΕ) —where Greek objects from Egypt and Egyptian handcrafted objects have been carefully arranged together — stands as another example of the imaginary reconstruction of ‘home’.

Much like in temporary exhibitions, sports memorabilia displayed across two walls of the large hall serve as identifiers of a long-standing tradition—one that first emerged ‘at home’ and continues in Greece. They demarcate material identities and the ways in which Greeks conceptualise and perform their post-diasporic heritage after their departure from Egypt (Fig. 3).

Fig 3. Showcases from the permanent display of sports memorabilia at the premises of the Association of Greeks from Egypt. Photo: Irakleitos Souyioultzoglou, September 2024

Sports constitute a symbolic space where discourses on nationhood and cultural identities intersect (Lichtenstein, 2015). For the Greeks in Egypt, such activities encompassed collective conceptualisations that defined the essence and the boundaries of Greekness in diaspora. Sports (along with other communal activities, such as scouting and school excursions) aimed to reinforce community bonds, played a central role in sustaining a distinct “Greek identity” (Ελληνική Κοινότητα Αλεξανδρείας, Λογοδοσία έτους 1965, 25-26), and became part of a strategy to counter the gradual “egyptianisation” of social life and the subsequent fear of assimilation.

The first sports clubs in Egypt emerged in the early 20th century (Jacob, 2011). The Egyptian Yacht Club in Alexandria was established in 1901, followed by the creation of the Egyptian Athletic Federation in 1910. Around the same time, Greeks began forming their own associations: the Nautical Club of Alexandria (1909), and later those in Cairo and Port Said (1927). The Greek Athletic Associations of Port Fuad (1932) and Port Said (1949) developed a strong presence in football and basketball, enriching the community’s sporting life.

The establishment of athletic clubs was considered as a critical step towards communal coherence, and was strongly supported by the community leadership. Accordingly, athletic successes were interpreted as a proof of the community’s vitality and evidence of virtues supposedly embedded in the community itself—discipline, dedication, and persistence in the face of hardship. Thus, sports memorabilia substantiated metaphors of moral and physical strength. The abolition of Capitulations (1937) and, subsequently, the 1956 Suez Canal Crisis and the Arab–Israeli wars, placed foreign communities under a legal and social framework that stripped away their privileged status and gradually led to their displacement. After most Greeks left Egypt, sports memorabilia, as prominent symbols of achievement, were transported to Athens and housed in the associations they established there—the most prominent being the Hellenic Nautical Club of Greeks from Egypt (Ελληνικός Ναυτικός Όμιλος Αιγυπτιωτών – ΕΝΟΑ), and the Association of Greeks from Egypt.

As Anna Pechurina (2020, 67) observes, in the context of migration, objects play a vital role in (re)constructing and (re)inventing the feeling of being at home. Once removed from their original setting, use, and ownership, these so-called “diasporic objects” take on new layers of meaning and significance as they are re-situated within different social spaces. Therefore, sports memorabilia, as “victorious objects,” embody migrants’ connections to their communal heritage and distant homeland. They serve both as reminders of physical separation from these places and experiences (Pechurina), and as material instantiations of collective belonging that symbolically reproduce a sense of “home.”

In the sports clubs and associations founded in Greece, former athletes assumed new roles as trainers for younger generations, and new victories soon followed. Trophies and medals were conveniently placed and proudly displayed alongside those transported from Egypt. Their display constitutes a performative act of continuity, and reconstitutes communal life in a different social setting. These objects publicly affirm that the values and shared memories of the community were re-embedded in a new environment.

The replacement of diasporic objects into a new social setting and their blending with objects that do not share the same territorial or historical origin, contributes to the symbolic construction of a new “home,” through the creation of fresh layers of memory. By evoking collective memories and materialising a longstanding tradition of communal activities, the memorabilia stand as reminders of practices that forged a sense of belonging and a shared ethnic/social identity — recognisable both within and outside the boundaries of the community of Greeks from Egypt.

References

William C. Jacob, Working Out Egypt: Effendi Masculinity and Subject Formation in Colonial Modernity, 1870–1940, Cairo: AUC, 2011.

Tatjana Lichtenstein, “‘An Athlete Like a Soldier Must Not Retreat’: Zionists, Sport, and Belonging in Interwar Czechoslovakia.” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 34, no. 1, 2015, p. 1-26

Timothy Mitchell,Colonizing Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988

Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire,” Representations, no. 26, Special Issue: Memory and Counter-Memory, 1989, p.7-24.

Anna Pechurina. “Researching identities through material possessions: The case of diasporic objects,”  Current Sociology 68, no. 5, 2020, p. 669–683.

Ελληνική Κοινότητα Αλεξανδρείας. Λογοδοσία Έτους 1965. ELIA Archive.

Vie et survie de la veste kurde : des mises en patrimoines mouvantes et politisées

Marie-Laure Archambault-Küch

En août 1930, le délégué à Antioche du haut-commissaire de la France au Levant présente l’avancement de l’exposition de costumes prévue pour la section « ethnologie » du pavillon des États du Levant sous mandat, édifié pour l’Exposition coloniale de 1931 à Vincennes. Parmi les tenues est prévu un « costume de femme des tribus kurdes » composée d’un « chiroual [sic] » et d’une « veste noire avec des nombreux passements blancs ») (Fig. 1). La tenue, destinée à être exposée sur un mannequin, doit figurer dans la salle d’Alep aux côtés d’objets présentant un atelier de tréfilerie, des broderies, un tapis orné de monuments emblématiques d’Alep, comme sa citadelle et sa grande mosquée, et des costumes alaouites et turcomans. Ceux-ci doivent nourrir la dimension ethnographique de l’exposition, aux côtés d’instruments de chasse et de pêche ainsi que d’outils agricoles. 

Fig. 1. Extrait d’une lettre de M. Cahour, gouverneur par intérim du gouvernement de Lattaquié, 27 août 1930, Cabinet Ponsot, 1/SL/1572, Centre des Archives diplomatiques de Nantes.

Aucun élément technique ou esthétique des tenues kurdes n’est invoqué pour justifier ce choix. Le costume kurde est privilégié, à l’instar des autres pièces ethnographiques, pour « l’attrait pittoresque » et « l’intérêt scientifique » qu’il peut représenter. Pour préparer l’Exposition de Vincennes, les services mandataires mettent en place une commission spécifique au Vilayet (Gouvernorat) d’Alep, composée à la fois d’agents français et syriens, qui organisent une collecte au sein de ses campagnes, contrainte à la fois par des conditions politiques, pratiques et financières. Les dépenses accordées pour la région d’Alep prévoient 100 livres syriennes [soit 2000 francs] pour l’achat des costumes et 25 livres syriennes [soit 500 francs] pour les déplacements en voiture (Exposition coloniale de Paris (1926 à 1931)). S’y ajoutent, pour l’ensemble des pièces prévues pour l’État de Syrie, des frais de prise de vue et de déplacement de la commission, d’emballage et de transport de Damas vers Beyrouth, mais aussi de fabrication de mannequins. Ceux-ci font l’objet d’une attention particulière : malgré leur prix, ces « mannequins artistiques » doivent reproduire « les types caractéristiques des populations », y compris l’un représentant les « tribus kurdes » (Exposition coloniale de Paris (1926 à 1931)). Cette présentation sur mannequin est justifiée par le fait que sont exposés « non point des costumes ajustés, mais des costumes drapés », et parce que « la présentation sur support dans une vitrine n’offr[e] aucune espèce d’intérêt ni documentaire, ni pittoresque » (Exposition coloniale de Paris (1926 à 1931)). Tout, dans la préparation matérielle de l’exposition de costumes, favorise une vision figée et archaïque des traditions vestimentaires rurales, et des Kurdes en particulier.  

Les services mandataires n’ont pas conservé, semble-t-il, de photographies ou de dessins de ces costumes. Cependant, des pièces collectées par le commandant Pierre Rondot en 1935, dans le cadre de la constitution des collections du musée parisien d’Ethnographie, paraissent se rapprocher, par leur coupe et leur ornementation de la veste féminine kurde de l’Exposition coloniale. Pierre Rondot, agent des services de renseignements du Mandat, est considéré comme un précurseur des études kurdes. Il a été chargé par ce musée de constituer une collection « d’objets kurdes de Syrie » au sein de laquelle les pièces textiles occupent une place centrale.

Dans une lettre du 26 octobre 1935, il indique que la plupart des pièces proviennent « de la région d’Andivar [Ain Diwar] (sur le Tigre) », à la frontière avec la Turquie. Il ajoute que « malheureusement ce n’est pas encore la montagne Kurde (pratiquement inaccessible, puisqu’en Turquie) et beaucoup de ces objets ont subi des influences étrangères (Arabes de la plaine). » Cette idée des régions turques comme conservatoire d’une culture matérielle traditionnelle renvoie, selon Ahmet Aktürk (2017), aux moindres contacts que les Kurdes y entretiennent avec le monde extérieur.

La correspondance de Pierre Rondot permet d’entrevoir les conditions matérielles de circulation de ces vêtements : ils sont transportés dans une caisse et un sac « plombés » par les Douanes mandataires, et expédiés de Beyrouth à Marseille, puis vers Paris. Les plombs sur les contenants témoignent de la valeur, plus patrimoniale que financière, associée aux blouses et aux vestes kurdes. Par ces opérations matérielles, le costume kurde anatolien, en particulier le şal ū şapik, composé d’une veste et d’un pantalon large, cristallisent une identité construite largement en exil, après la Première Guerre mondiale. Les vêtements collectés et authentifiés n’ont pas vocation à refléter des pratiques vestimentaires réelles, mais à cerner une population par des marqueurs matériels identifiables (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. Blouse de femme kurde, Musée du Quai Branly (n° Inventaire 71.1935.129.6).

Le choix de ce type de vestes peut être rapproché de la stratégie mandataire vis-à-vis des « minorités » visant à accentuer la fragmentation de l’ordre politique et social syrien (Tejel 2008). Dans ce cadre, les Kurdes, principal groupe musulman non arabe de Syrie, constituent une source de frictions entre les élites sunnites locales et l’administration mandataire. Celle-ci adopte un positionnement ambigu vis-à-vis du mouvement national, soutenant le mouvement culturel kurde en Syrie et au Liban tout en cherchant à cantonner l’activité politique kurde dans la région de la Jazira (Aktürk 2017). Après la Première Guerre mondiale, la lutte nationaliste kurde, qui rassemble à la fois des individus d’origine anatolienne ayant fui le régime kémaliste et des populations implantées de longue date dans le nord de la Syrie, se cristallise dans ses dimensions politiques et culturelles.

Le şal ū şapik stabilise une identité pourtant hétérogène, les dialectes, appartenances religieuses et organisations sociales étant multiples au sein des populations kurdes de Syrie. Le choix des responsables mandataires du Pavillon syro-libanais de privilégier le costume kurde, aux côtés de tenues alaouite et turcomane, doit ainsi être lu au double prisme de la politique mandataire des minorités, et des significations politiques assignées aux vêtements traditionnels par les nationalistes kurdes en Syrie. La tradition vestimentaire, telle que donnée à voir par les acteurs mandataires, concerne prioritairement des communautés minoritaires, et non les populations arabes sunnites sédentaires.

Cette mise en patrimoine différenciée est reprise par certains acteurs syro-libanais de la société civile, comme en témoigne l’activité menée par Evelyne Bustros. D’une importante famille de la bourgeoisie grecque-orthodoxe de Beyrouth, Evelyne Bustros, née Tuéni, se réinstalle dans la capitale libanaise en 1931 après un long séjour en France. Écrivaine et figure de la vie mondaine, elle s’investit dans les mouvements féminin et patriotique libaniste. Engagée auprès de la Société de la Renaissance des femmes, elle fonde Syriban, une société de promotion de l’artisanat syro-libanais (Donovan 2023). Cette activité la conduit vers les vêtements. Dans ce cadre, elle conçoit une série de poupées incarnant des « types » par leurs costumes. Elle organise également un concours de costumes traditionnels sous forme de bal, afin de valoriser les tenues « orientales » (Proux 1931). Elle prépare par la suite une exposition de costumes pour l’Exposition universelle de 1939-1940 à New York, accompagnée de la publication d’un album de 25 costumes peints à l’aquarelle par le peintre Georges Cyr (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3. Kurd Street-Sweeper, Beyrouth, Evelyne Bustros, Georges Cyr, Lebanese and Syrian Costumes, Beyrouth : Imprimerie catholique, [1940], n.p. [vue 19]

L’un de ces types est légendé Balayeuse kurde, Beyrouth ; la légende qui l’accompagne indique « des matériaux et des broderies les plus riches, avec des couleurs éclatantes » (Bustros & Cyr 1940], n. p. [vue 5]). L’aquarelle donne à voir une femme effectivement richement habillée, avec une veste coupée à la façon d’un boléro, un tablier, une ceinture (zinnar) nouée autour de la taille et une robe elle aussi ornementée. Le boléro présente, dans sa passementerie et sa coupe des similitudes avec les exemples présentés ci-dessus. La valorisation par Evelyne Bustros et Georges Cyr de ces tenues est empreinte de romanesque et de fantaisie. Georges Cyr, peintre français établi au Liban à partir de 1934, emprunte à l’imaginaire des « types » ethniques développés par les photographes orientalistes au tournant du xxe siècle.

Quant à Evelyne Bustros, sa vision des costumes traditionnels régionaux, y compris de la veste féminine kurde, se caractérise par une grande ambiguïté. Actrice de l’entre-deux, imprégnée d’une certaine esthétique coloniale, mais désireuse de voir s’accomplir une émancipation nationale, elle se livre à un processus d’« auto-orientalisation » (Nachabe Taan 2020). L’exotisation du patrimoine vestimentaire a ici pour enjeu la construction d’un répertoire culturel à la fois national et transnational.

La dimension nationale se lit à travers la valorisation de la diversité vestimentaire supposément liée aux multiples communautés confessionnelles et ethniques. L’œcuménisme d’Evelyne Bustros, subtil, passe par la présentation d’une mosaïque religieuse diversifiée. Aux côtés de la balayeuse kurde, dans la collection d’aquarelles, les Alaouites et les Druzes sont identifiés comme tels, rappelant à son public international la diversité du Liban (Donovan 2023). Il s’agit d’une affirmation de ce qui est alors en train d’être formulé comme une spécificité libanaise. En même temps, la démarche entretient une profonde ambiguïté vis-à-vis des frontières nationales. Le choix des tenues renvoie à un patrimoine commun à l’ensemble du Bilād al-Shām. Comme l’atteste une coupure de presse montrant les costumes destinés à l’Exposition universelle de New York de 1939 portés par des jeunes femmes, la construction de ces tenues « traditionnelles » amalgame des éléments très divers issus d’un imaginaire d’héritages partagés (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4. Coupure de presse, journal inconnu, 1939. Archives de l’Université américaine de Beyrouth, Evelyne Bustros Collection, 1878-1971, A:305.4.1.

Enfin, l’observation de tenues conservées par le musée du Quai Branly invite à nuancer l’idée de particularismes culturels fixes et caractéristiques des minorités. D’une part, la veste kurde valorisée tant par les organisateurs mandataires de l’Exposition coloniale de 1931 que par Evelyne Bustros partage des caractéristiques avec des pièces identifiées comme issues des populations druzes (n° d’inventaire 71.1989.25.10.5), bédouines (n° d’inventaire 71.1933.84.16 et 71.1964.22.4), ou arabes sédentaires (n° d’inventaire 71.1989.25.40).

Fig. 5. Veste de femme kurde (Libadê), N° inventaire 71.1935.129.8, Musée du Quai Branly.

Les collections invitent aussi à se garder d’une vision du patrimoine vestimentaire comme l’héritage d’une tradition immémoriale qui ne connaitrait pas d’évolution. Une veste fabriquée par un tailleur kurde chrétien syrien est ainsi confectionnée « à l’aide d’une cotonnade d’importation de qualité inférieure » (n° d’inventaire 71.1935.129.8, Fig. 5), indiquant par là-même la multiplicité des circulations à l’œuvre dans la vie et la survie des objets vestimentaires considérés comme traditionnels.

Sources

Evelyne Bustros, Georges Cyr, Lebanese and Syrian Costumes, Beyrouth: Imprimerie catholique, s. d. [1940].

Collections du Musée du Quai-Branly.

Exposition coloniale de Paris (1926 à 1931), Centre des archives diplomatiques de Nantes, Cabinet Ponsot, 1/SL/1572.

Marcelle Proux, « Le bal des costumes régionaux s’est tenu mercredi, somptueux et brillant, dans les jardins d’été du Restaurant Français », L’Orient, Beyrouth, 29 mai 1931, p. 2.

Références

Ahmet S. Aktürk, « Fez, Brimmed Hat, and Kum û Destmal: Evolution of Kurdish National Identity from the Late Ottoman Empire to Modern Turkey and Syria », Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 4, no 1, 2017, p. 157‑187.

Joshua Donovan, « The Syro-Lebanese from ‘Syriban’: Nostalgia, Partition, and Coexistence in Eveline Bustros’ Imagined Homeland », Mashriq & Mahjar: Journal of Middle East & North African Migration Studies 10, n° 1, 2023, p. 107-136.

Asher Kaufman, « ‘Too Much French, but a Swell Exhibit’: Representing Lebanon at the New York World’s Fair 1939–1940 », British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 35, no 1, 1 avril 2008, p. 59‑77.

Yasmine Nachabe Taan, Reading Marie al-Khazen’s photographs: gender, photography, Mandate Lebanon, New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2020.

Michelle Tolini Finamore, « Fashioning the Colonial at the Paris Expositions, 1925 and 1931 », Fashion Theory 7, n° 3-4, 2003, p. 345‑360.

Jordi Tejel, Syria’s Kurds: History, Politics and Society, New York: Routledge, 2008.

An Iznik Tile, Greek Collectors, and the Appreciation of Asia Minor Pottery

Mina Moraitou

An unusual Iznik tile displayed at the Benaki Museum has an interesting acquisition history that dates back to the late Ottoman era. Its journey, from Berlin, Alexandria, and finally Athens, reflects an interconnected story of European collecting, concepts on Ottoman art and cultural exchange in the modern period.

The 17th-century octagonal Iznik tile depicts a walled enclosure, within which a series of domed buildings are set around a large, prominent tree (fig. 1). The building on the left, surmounted by three crosses, most likely represents a church, while the building on the right seems to represent a mosque. The composition is framed by two large red tulips and four unclear characters between the upper branches of the tree. The tile belongs to a broader artistic tradition associated with pilgrimage, offering a visual representation of a holy site.

Fig. 1. Octagonal tile, Iznik, second half of the 17th century, diam. 32,5 cm. Benaki Museum 87.

As one traces the story of this tile, its origins can be found within the Ottoman Empire, where it was acquired by Dr Kurt Zander (1860-1926), a Berlin-based government councillor and avid collector. Zander’s fascination with Oriental art began during his extensive travels, starting in the late 1880s. In 1896, he permanently moved to Istanbul, where he served as director of the Ottoman Anatolian Railway and headed the Commission of the Baghdad Line. Like many European collectors of his time, Zander was captivated by the perceived “exoticism” of the Orient. The 19th century witnessed a surge of European interest in the East. With growing exposure through trade, travel, diplomacy, and military campaigns, Europeans increasingly recognized the cultural and artistic richness of lands beyond their own. Oriental art became highly admired, and collecting such objects became a fashionable pursuit among the European elite.

Dr Zander’s collection, which steadily expanded throughout his lifetime, was auctioned in 1914, a year before his death. In the opening pages of the auction catalogue, it was noted that his frequent travels to the Orient had allowed him to acquire many remarkable art objects at a time when such treasures were still undervalued by European collectors. In the auction catalogue the tile was described as a remarkable 16th-century octagonal tile with red, blue, and green decoration, representing an Armenian church (Collection Dr Kurt Zander 1914, n° 417, p. 16). This description is particularly intriguing because, unlike other items in catalogue, it was not attributed to Iznik nor was an alternative provenance suggested (fig. 2). The possible reason for this lies in the challenges faced by 19th-century art experts in identifying the origins of Iznik ceramics. At the time, attribution was often based on inscriptions, themes of decoration, or the location where a piece was discovered. Publications from that period reveal how scholars and collectors often misattributed ceramics, assuming multiple production centers, such as Kütahya, Damascus, Rhodes or Iran, for what we now recognize as Iznik ceramics. In reality, these wares were predominantly produced in the town of Iznik in western Anatolia, a major centre of ceramic production during the height of the Ottoman Empire. The misattribution of ceramics reflects the evolving understanding of Islamic art during the 19th century as Western scholars gradually uncovered the full complexity of Ottoman artistic traditions and cultural influences (Moraitou 2017).

Fig. 2: Illustration page from the auction catalogue of Dr Kurt Zander’s collection. Benaki Museum Library.

Following the sale, the story leads to Alexandria, where the tile became part of the collection of Michael Sinadinos, a prominent figure in the city’s thriving Greek community during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Like many members of the Greek diaspora in Egypt, Sinadinos was deeply involved in trade and commerce. He also played a vital role in the cultural and social life of the Greek community, serving as president of the Greek Community of Alexandria from 1911 until his death in 1919. At the turn of the 20th century, Alexandria was a cosmopolitan city where cultural influences from Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa converged. Within this vibrant urban environment, wealthy foreign residents, including many Greeks, became important patrons of the arts. Sinadinos was no exception, and he amassed a collection of Iznik tiles, including the octagonal tile. Whether he acquired the tile directly from the auction in Berlin or through one of Alexandria’s many antique dealers remains unclear.

The next step in the tile’s journey came with the inheritance of the Sinadinos tiles by his daughter, Maria, who was married to Alexandros Benakis a member of the Benaki family and an avid admirer of ceramics. His collection in Alexandria, which included both Chinese ceramics and around 100 pieces of Iznik pottery, became one of the foundations of what would later become the Benaki Museum’s Islamic collection. After his death in 1922, the tile was exhibited in Egypt’s first exhibition of Islamic art, which showcased items primarily from private collections (Migeon 1925, no. 4, p. 7; Migeon 1925, pl. 25). The exhibition, which opened to the public in 1925, was modelled on similar exhibitions in London and Paris. Around half of the exhibits were ceramics, and the catalogue noted that the selection of ceramics from Asia Minor—mostly Iznik—was particularly memorable (fig. 3 & 4).

Fig. 3 (Left), Pierre Racine, Exposition d’art musulman, Alexandria 1925 (Benaki Museum – Photographic Archives). Fig. 4 (Right), Cover of the exhibition’s catalogue (Benaki Museum – Library).

During the early 20th century, Greek collectors had developed a strong appreciation for Iznik ceramics. Although it may seem unusual for Greeks to be attracted to Ottoman art, some collectors, particularly those living in cosmopolitan centres like Alexandria, adopted the tastes of their European counterparts, who had long be fascinated by the arts of Asia. The familiarity and admiration for Iznik designs among Greek collectors could be traced back to the influence of these motifs on 19th-century Greek art, such as textiles, architectural decoration or woodwork.

After 1926 Antonis Benakis, Alexandros’ older brother and founder of the Benaki Museum, gradually relocated to Athens with the family’s art collection. Antonis had plans to establish a museum in Athens, and Iznik ceramics were one of the highlights of this vision. In a 1927 letter to George Eumorfopoulos, a leading collector of Chinese art, Antonis mentioned that the ceramics his late brother Alexandros had gathered would form the core of the museum he was planning and intended to donate to the Greek nation. When the museum opened in 1931, the tile was part of the Islamic collection, which was housed in two galleries on the ground floor and today it is exhibited among the rest of the Iznik collection at the Benaki Museum of Islamic Art.

References

Collection Dr. Kurt Zander geh. Regierungsrat Berlin: Art Mahométan tapis persans faïences et arts textiles de l’Orient, manuscrits persans. Sculptures Grecques et Romaines terres cuites. Amsterdam: Frederik Muller, 1914.

Gaston Migeon, Exposition d’art musulman, Les Amis de l’art, exhibition catalogue, Alexandria : Grammata, 1925.

Gaston Migeon, Exposition d’art musulman, Les Amis de l’art, album, Paris : Albert Morancé, 1925.

Mina Moraitou, Iznik a fascination with ceramics, exhibition catalogue, Athens : Benaki Museum, 2017.


Paper Trails: A Transimperial Legal Quest for the Franco Family’s Citizenship in the 19th Century

Antonis Nasis

The long-standing provincial dragoman dynasty of the Francos has served at the French consulate in Chania, the capital of the Ottoman vilayet (province) of Crete, since the mid-18th century. Their legacy seemed to be in jeopardy when Monsieur Latten emerged as a contender for the dragoman position at the consulate. In response to the French ministry’s intention to appoint Mr. Latten, the French consul, Bertrand, argued that the candidate’s “mediocre curriculum vitae” suggested he was considered primarily due to strong connections. This situation also had significant implications for the Franco family. On 15 July 1861, the French consulate in Chania initiated a procedure to register the family as French nationals. Despite any omissions regarding “certain formalities and bureaucratic acts”, as the consul himself acknowledged, the French authorities would ardently advocate for the Franco file, ensuring they could continue to maintain their centuries-old privileges under a specific legal framework. This framework was based on the Capitulations (῾ahdname), which conferred upon non-Ottoman subjects a set of privileges and obligations (Van den Boogert 2005).

Beyond Ottoman jurisprudence, the Franco family was required to consider amendments to the French Civil Code (1804, 1849) for individuals who were “not French nationals and who have made a substantial contribution to the French economy through the provision of services”. This entailed collating a substantial corpus of documentation attesting to their French origin. The collected documents were travelled in an envelope along the following routes: Chania, Bayonne (southwestern France), Paris, the port city of Smyrna (Ottoman Empire), and back to Chania. The collection of these documents, initially intended for individual use, will ultimately be used by the family as a set of seventeen pieces from various state and non-state entities, spanning over a century (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1 (left). List of the seventeen records in the Francos’ envelope (AMAE, Personnel, Moïse Franco, 23 August 1861); Fig. 2 (right). Copy of the birth certificate of Moïse Franco’s ancestor, Abraham Dacosta Franco, from Bayonne Municipality (AMAE, Personnel, Moïse Franco, 23 August 1861).

The Franco family, originally from the Iberian Peninsula, most likely Portugal, was compelled to follow migratory flows due to mass persecutions of Iberian Jews and eventually settled in the Jewish quarter of Saint-Esprit in Bayonne, a town in southwestern France. For this reason, in April 1861, Moïse Franco travelled to Bayonne to obtain a copy of his ancestors’ birth certificate to establish his lineage (Fig. 2).

Subsequently, additional documents were presented by the French consul in Chania, certifying the long-standing services of the Francos as dragomans and merchants who had served France’s interests across various periods (1823, 1837, 1843, 1848, 1853, 1858, and 1860). The Francos’ activities extended beyond the island of Crete and maintained a presence in the central Mediterranean port of Smyrna, as evidenced by archival records in the Ottoman archives. They acted as brokers (ṣarrāf), a function equivalent to that of moneylenders in the absence of bankers. They constituted a significant source of profit for the Ottoman state in the context of the capitulations (Fig. 3).

The document describes the appreciation and the long-standing contribution of the Franco family to Ottoman interests as brokers (BOA, İ.HR.239/14162)

Fig. 3. The document describes the appreciation and the long-standing contribution of the Franco family to Ottoman interests as brokers (BOA, İ.HR.239/14162).

However, the complex legal status of the Franco family required supplementary documentation. Consequently, the Francos requested the local Jewish millet (community) of Chania declare their religious affiliation. They declared that they had never “never renounced their French citizenship, nor their ancestry” (Fig. 4). Ultimately, the unique legal framework of the Capitulations allowed individuals from outside the Ottoman Empire to engage in commercial enterprises within its territory. However, this entailed formal ratification from the relevant Ottoman authorities. In this case, the vali (general governor) of Crete Muşir İsmail Paşa corroborated that Francos had always been part of the French delegation (Fig. 5).

Fig. 4 (left). Certificate of the Jewish community of Crete with signatures (Source: AMAE, Personnel, Moïse Franco, 23 August 1861); Fig. 5 (right). French translation of the Certificate issued from the Ottoman authority of Crete by the vali Muşir İsmail Paşa (AMAE, Personnel, Moïse Franco, 10-12 June 1861).

The case of the Franco family of Chania illustrates the legal pluralism that characterised the Ottoman Empire at the time, particularly for individuals under the protection of the French state who were not formal subjects of that state. The Francos served the French “colony” for a century without being subjects of the French state. Their case offers valuable insights into the evolving legal concept of citizenship in the Mediterranean and inter-imperial contexts, as exemplified by Crete. This aligns with Jessica Marglin’s concept of “legal belonging” in her microhistorical research, which examines the complexities of nationality and citizenship between imperial contexts and the personal positioning of actors (Marglin, 2022). The documents collected in the Franco case, while naming specific family members, would ultimately have a profound influence on all of the Francos’ professional and economic activities. Over time these records played a decisive role in their fate, leading to the loss of French citizenship and the subsequent extermination at the hands of the Germans in June 1944 – at least for the majority of them. The Franco family’s case demonstrates how legal and administrative documents, at different times and in various locations, were accorded disparate statuses and functions. However, these documents eventually constituted a unified cohesive whole an envelope – of legal and historical significance. This collection of records reflects the broader transformations occurring in the Eastern Mediterranean, where individuals and families sought to protect their interests and maintain continuity through inherited legal and economic strategies.

 

Sources

Archives du ministère des Affaires Étrangères [French Foreign Ministry Archives]

            Personnel, Moise Franco

Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı, Osmanlı Arşivi [Ottoman State Archives]

            BOA, İ.HR.239/14162

 

Bibliography

Julia Phillips Cohen, Becoming Ottomans: Sephardi Jews and Imperial Citizenship in the Modern Era, New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Jessica Marglin, The Shamama Case. Contesting Citizenship across the Modern Mediterranean, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022.

M’hamed Oualdi, “Une succession d’empires. Les historicités d’une société maghrébine (1860-1930)”, Annales HSS 72, no. 4, 2017, p. 1055-1083.

Marie-Carmen Smyrnelis, Traversées méditerranéennes. Jeux d’espace et mobilités au XIXe siècle, Paris : Classiques Garnier, 2023.

Maurits H. Van den Boogert, The Capitulations and the Ottoman Legal System: Qadis, Consuls and Beratlıs in the 18th Century, Leiden: Brill, 2005.

 

Houses Left Behind, Pictures Taken: Memories and Legacies of the 1923 Lausanne Treaty

Eleni Kyramargiou

On October 2, 1924, in compliance with the terms of the Lausanne Treaty, the residents of Sinasos/Mustafapaşa in Central Anatolia (in the Ürgüp District of Nevşehir Province today) left their homes for Greece. As refugees displaced by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, they were fully aware that neither they nor their families would be allowed to return. Their exodus was not an abrupt, but rather a long, coordinated farewell. The residents of Sinasos had known they would have to leave since the signing of the population exchange treaty; what remained was to learn the details and the date of their departure.

Although their overall story is typical of the population exchange process, one detail sets Sinasos apart. Before their departure, the residents of Sinasos, supported by their local council, photographed their houses and community. Τhese photographs travelled with them, or even ahead of them, first to Istanbul and then, finally, to Athens where the photo album Η Σινασός: το διαμάντι της Ανατολής, 1924 [Sinasos: the diamond of Anatolia, 1924] was published at the end of 1924 (Fig. 1). This album was a conscious attempt to preserve the past, namely the history, the traditions, and the collective memory of a community which no longer exists. The photographs from ‘there’ and the short texts written by the refugees in their new ‘here’ constitute an endeavour to reconstruct their old communal life, from its history and architecture to the local dialect and the songs they used to sing (Fig. 2).

The cover of the photo album Η Σινασός: το διαμάντι της Ανατολής, 1924

Fig. 1. Christos Panagos, The cover of the photo album Η Σινασός: το διαμάντι της Ανατολής, 1924 [Sinasos: the diamond of Anatolia, 1924]  (private collection)

The first page of the photo album Η Σινασός: το διαμάντι της Ανατολής, 1924

Fig. 2. Christos Panagos, The first page of the photo album Η Σινασός: το διαμάντι της Ανατολής, 1924 [Sinasos: the diamond of Anatolia, 1924] displaying a general view of Sinasos (private collection)

This album is more than just a book. For the people of Sinasos who experienced the exodus, it is a living piece of home, while for their descendants it serves as a way to learn about their past and place of origin. For historians, the album is valuable historical evidence, not only for the information it provides, but also for the insight it offers into the historical perception and perspective of its creators, who sought to document the history of a place and community that would soon cease to exist in its original form. It is a precious object despite the fact that it did not actually come from the native land of Sinassos, but was instead made ‘here’ in order to preserve the history of a ‘there’ that had to be left behind, highlighting the multiple dimensions an object can acquire over the course of its life.

One page of the photo album Η Σινασός: το διαμάντι της Ανατολής, 1924

Fig. 3. Christos Panagos, One page of the photo album Η Σινασός: το διαμάντι της Ανατολής, 1924 [Sinasos: the diamond of Anatolia, 1924]  with photographs on the right hand and texts on the left.

The album created by the first generation of refugees from Sinassos, was one of the objects encountered during a research on the material dimensions of the population exchange experience. The initial questions were simple: what does one take in a moment of expulsion? What objects were considered valuable, useful, or symbolically important? What became of them over time? And if one can still identify these objects, what meaning do they hold for their current owners?

For the research team, the album initiated a broader investigation into the objects that Christian refugees chose to take with them at the moment of flight. More specifically: What objects did the non-exchangeable refugees who arrived in Greece after August 1922 bring with them? Did they choose objects objectively valuable, subjectively precious, or useful and practical? How many of these objects have survived to this day? When the project started, the research team believed these objects would help reconstruct the process of refugee integration into the novel setting in Greece. Eventually, it was realized that these objects have a second life: they acquire multiple meanings and generate diverse sentiments in the hands of their current owners (Kopytoff 1986, p. 64).

Clothes and personal items, jewellery and valuables, trade tools and religious icons, property deeds, documents, and letters were among the most common things that the displaced chose carry. In hastly packed bundles, they combined practical items for daily use with objects of material and emotional significance; the precious and the quotidian, side by side. To encapsulate and disseminate the findings of the research project Objects in Motion, it was decided that a digital exhibition would be the ideal medium. These objects along with the stories of both their original and current owners, highlight the intersection mobility history and material culture. As Renée Hirschon noted, these objects and the memories they carry, as well as the use of memory itself over the past 100 years, have built ‘memory bridges’ for the owners’ descendants. These bridges constructed across three generations, represent an effort to maintain continuity through time, especially when the place of origin has been irrevocably lost and memory has become ‘their most valuable property’ (Hirschon 1989, p. 15).

For the research team, Objects in Motion raised many intriguing questions on an array of issues: How do individuals construct multiple identities? How are personal recollections and, in the end, personal history shaped through second hand accounts?, More generally, how are personal narratives formed and how do they influence the big picture and the broader narrative? What symbolic meanings are attached to the ancestral house, and which memories endure across generations? Conversely, what traumas emerge from forced displacement and resettlement in unfamiliar homes? Many informants have reconstructed their ‘refugee identity’ repositioning themselves and their families within historical narratives, spanning the past, present and, possibly, the future. Kristina Gedgaudaitė describes this process as ‘viewing memory as a portable toolkit’ aptly characterizing it as ‘portable memory’ (Gedgaudaité 2021, p. 219).

These objects, alongside the stories and memories they carry, are fragments from a long and arduous population movement. This movement concluded a decade of military conflict in the Balkans, defined the national borders of Greece and Turkey, and shaped the societies of both countries. Simultaneously, thousands of people and objects crossed the Aegean in the opposite direction, as Muslim populations left Greece under the Lausanne Treaty. Monumental as it was, this was neither the first nor the last time refugees crossed the Aegean Sea. Objects do not speak for themselves. Yet they stand as resilient markers of historical moments, reminding us that even in times of crisis people make choices: they chose what is valuable, what they believe will help them face the unknown, and what they hope will carry their memories into the future.

References

Kristina Gedgaudaitė, Memories of Asia Minor in Contemporary Greek Culture. An Itinerary, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.

Renée Hirschon, Heirs of the Greek Catastrophe: The Social Life of Asia Minor Refugees in Piraeus, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Igor Kopytoff, “The cultural biography of things: commoditization as process,” in Arjun Appadurai (ed.), The social life of things. Commodities in cultural perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

A Diary Across Time and Space: Elpida Castanaki, Cairo-Paris-Athens-Antibes, 1933-1963

Vivi Hatzigeorgiou

For more than thirty years, Elpida Castanaki kept a diary in French comprising 130 notebooks. A resident of Paris, she also spent a few years in Athens. Moving between Paris and Athens but also Antibes and Cairo, Elpida always carried some volumes of her diary with her, even in extreme circumstances. This multivolume diary is now part of the Castanakis archive at the Hellenic Literary and Historical Archive (ELIA) (Fig. 1 and 2).

A pile of notebooks forming part of the diary of Elpida Castanaki

Journaux Elpida Castanakis

Fig. 1 and 2. Notebooks forming part of the diary of Elpida Catanaki in pile and box at ELIA (Source: ELIA/MIET)

Elpida Castanaki was born in Cairo, on March 17, 1912, as the second of the five daughters of businessman Michalis Mavroeidis and Sappho Kanaki. In 1929, she moved to Paris to pursue literature studies at the Sorbonne. There, she met and fell in love with Thrassos Castanakis, a writer and professor at the School of Oriental Languages. A Greek from Istanbul, Thrassos was married to philologist Angela Valiadi. Despite her family’s objections, the 18-year-old Elpida, decided to commit herself to Thrassos. In the summer of 1931, they settled together in Paris.

From his years in Istanbul, Castanakis maintained a close friendship with the Prassinos family, a relationship that continued in Paris where the family had settled after fleeing what is known in Greece as “the Asia Minor Catastrophe”. The Prassinos children – poet Gisèle and painter Mario – were frequent visitors to the Castanakis home on rue Littré in Montparnasse (Fig. 3 and 4). Elpida and Thrassos affectionally referred to them as “our children.” In their will, they named Gisèle and her husband Petros Frydas, as their literary heirs. These details are drawn from the pages of Elpidas’s diary. What she could not have foreseen, however, was the fate of her diary after her death in 1963 at the age of 51. Thrassos, devastated and struggling with long-term alcoholism, passed away in 1967.

Elpida Castanaki at her desk in Paris

Elpida Kastanaki standing in her home in Paris

Fig. 3 and 4.  Elpida Castanaki at her home in Paris, c. 1935 (ELIA/MIET)

At that point, Gisèle’s husband, Frydas, gathered and organized the papers he found in the Castanakis couple’s residencies in Paris and Antibes. In 1975, he sent them to ELIA, along with a detailed catalogue. But why did Frydas choose ELIA? The extensive Castanakis archive constitutes a significant contribution to the study of Greek literature from the first half of the 20th century. ELIA remains to this date a foundation dedicated to the preservation and study of modern Greek literary and historical archives. Frydas believed that the Castanakis papers should be made available to the research in what seemed – then as now – to be their natural repository. Another factor that may influence archival donations decisions is personal connections. Frydas, an Alexandrian intellectual, was a friend and supporter of Manos Haritatos, also an Alexandrian and the founder of ELIA. The transfer of the Castanakis archive from Paris to Athens was facilitated by a bond of trust forged in Alexandria. The diary was not included in the first donation. It was only in 2017 that Catherine Prassinos, daughter of Mario Prassinos, entrusted it to ELIA. This is how Elpida’s personal journal intime was ultimately transformed into archival material, an object for study and exhibition.

Although the diary’s first entry is dated Cairo, 16 February 1929, it seems that Elpida started writing systematically after her wedding in 1933, notably at Thrassos suggestion. She recalls:

Antibes, Tuesday 21 June 1938. I stretch to re-read my diary for the years 1931 to 1933. The first two years do not exist, only a few dates and from these not all the important ones. In any case, at the time Thrassos had not suggested to me the idea and it was not from me that it would come. The year 1933 begins to turn into a real diary…. All that would have been lost and not only the events but also the words and the very ideas of Thrassos.

A typical teenage diary, marked by gaps and irregular entries, turns into a chronicle of shared life with Thrassos. Elpida assumes the role of guardian of his thoughts and expressions. Nevertheless, the diary’s importance would be greatly diminished if Thrassos were its only focus.

The Castanakis couple moved within the circles of left-wing intellectuals during pivotal moments in European history. Elpida noted the activities of each day. We observe how the French intelligentsia expressed solidarity with the Spanish Civil War, how their friends were exiled in the Greek islands under the Metaxas regime, how the Castanakis fled Paris during the June 1940 exodus. Their journey took them to the village of Monestiés near the Franco Spanish border, where they stayed for three months before undertaking a perilous route via Portugal to Greece where they finally arrived on 20 October 1940 and remained there throughout the war (Fig. 5). Elpida’s entries document not only the escalating destitution during the German occupation but also a remarkable surge in literary production, as expressed through the publication of new periodicals, books and theatrical plays. Petros Haris wrote: “if someone asked me what it is that our country produces during these difficult times I would answer, without hesitation, theatrical troupes and philological periodicals.” (Haris, 1943).

A first page listing places to which the couple and the diary travelled in 1940

Fig. 5. A first page listing places to which the couple and the diary travelled in 1940 (ELIA/MIET)

Thrassos, Elpida and a group of literary friends gathered daily at the Athenian publishing house, Pyrsos, later renamed Aetos. Among them were Varnalis, Kavvadias, Terzakis, Karagatsis, Venezis, Iakovidi, Theotokas, Evelpidis, who met to discuss collaborations, new periodicals and the course of the war.

By 1942, however, signs of exhaustion emerged. Instead of running to the nearby shelter during air raids, Elpida and Thrassos chose to stay in bed, reading War and Peace. Thrassos writes incessantly: short stories, novels, articles; he keeps the theatrical review column in Philological Sunday. Elpida translates plays and short stories from English and French. At the same time, they work hard in their farm at Helliniko, growing vegetables and raising animals that helped them survive during the famine – and friends and poor neighbours, as well.

After the war, they spend their summers in Antibes hosting friends. Thrassos, famous for his culinary skills, prepares special dishes for their guests. Yet new conflicts loomed. The Korean war, although distant, creates an upheaval in Europe. The brother of Thrassos, Loukas, is exiled in Makronisos and Ai-Stratis, along with Ritsos, Dimitris Fotiades and other friends.

The transformation of Elpida’s diary, from a private record of the domestic sphere to public archival source, available to research, raises questions about how objects can acquire a new meaning never anticipated by their creator. Furthermore, the successive transfer of the diary and archive – from Castanakis to Frydas and finally to ELIA – through relationships built on trust, highlights the essential role of interpersonal connections for the circulation and re-signification of objects.

References

Σπύρος Καράογλου, “Από την αλληλογραφία Γιώργου Θεοτοκά-Θράσου Καστανάκη. Το χρονικό μιας φιλικής σχέσης [From the correspondence of Giorgos Theotokas-Thrassos Kastanakis. The record of a friendship]”, Κονδυλοφόρος, no. 1, 2002, p. 118-173.

Αλεξάνδρα Μπουφέα, Τα λογοτεχνικά περιοδικά της Κατοχής [Literary magazines during the Occupation], Αθήνα : Σοκόλη, , 2006.

Δημήτρης Φωτιάδης, Ενθυμήματα [Memoirs],  Αθήνα : Β έκδοση, Κέδρος, 1983.

Petros Haris, «Πρωινός Τύπος» (Proinos Typos), 1st October 1943.

Jean Pierre Joshua, « Le journal comme forme littéraire et comme itinéraire de vie », Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 87, no. 4, 2003, p. 703-714.

La xhubleta : un vêtement albanais venu de la Crète minoenne ?

Gilles de Rapper

En novembre 2022, l’Unesco a inscrit sur la liste du patrimoine immatériel nécessitant une sauvegarde urgente les « savoir-faire, artisanat et formes d’utilisation » de la xhubleta, un vêtement féminin originaire du nord de l’Albanie (fig. 1). Si le dossier préparé par le ministère albanais de la Culture insiste, conformément aux attendus d’une telle candidature, sur la participation des femmes au processus de fabrication et aux usages de la xhubleta ainsi que sur son importance pour la survie des communautés locales, le même vêtement est l’objet d’un autre discours largement diffusé en Albanie, mais moins visible à l’étranger, qui fait remonter son origine jusqu’à une antique civilisation méditerranéenne dont les Albanais seraient les derniers héritiers. Ce billet, tout en retraçant l’histoire récente de la xhubleta, s’intéresse précisément au discours qui fait de ce vêtement une preuve de l’ancienneté plurimillénaire des Albanais.

site de l’Unesco consacré à la xhubleta

Fig. 1. Capture d’écran du site de l’Unesco consacré à la xhubleta. Le site précise : « Portée par les femmes et les filles qui vivent dans les régions montagneuses du nord de l’Albanie, la xhubleta est un vêtement fait à la main qui se caractérise par sa forme de cloche ondulée. Elle est majoritairement noire avec des motifs brodés colorés. »

On désigne par xhubleta un vêtement féminin en usage dans la Grande Montagne (Malësia e Madhe), au nord de l’Albanie. Son élément principal est une jupe ondulée, en forme de cloche (la xhubleta proprement dite) réalisée en bure (shajak) de couleur noire (fig. 2). Le vêtement se compose aussi d’un gilet, d’un tablier, de chausses et d’une capote. Outre la forme caractéristique et le poids de la jupe, le vêtement se distingue par les motifs brodés sur ses différents éléments. Il était produit par les femmes elles-mêmes en plusieurs exemplaires et constituait leur trousseau. Plusieurs variantes sont attestées selon les localités.

A girl dressed in Xhubleta costume during Logu i Bjeshkëve, Malësi e Madhe

Fig. 2. A girl dressed in Xhubleta costume during Logu i Bjeshkëve, Malësi e Madhe, photographie d’Anila Zajmi, 2018, disponible sur le site de l’Unesco. Logu i Bjeshkëve est un festival annuel qui met en scène les vêtements traditionnels du nord de l’Albanie. Dans sa version actuelle, inaugurée en 1998, il reproduit un rassemblement régional déjà attesté au début du xxe siècle dans lequel la xhubleta constituait un vêtement d’apparat.

La première mention de la xhubleta serait due à un savant hongrois qui l’avait observée à la fin du XVIIIe siècle chez des montagnards albanais de la tribu des Kelmend installés en Slavonie austro-hongroise à la suite de la guerre austro-ottomane de 1737-1738. C’est surtout au début du XXe siècle, cependant, que sont publiées les premières descriptions et études qui fondent aujourd’hui encore la connaissance de la xhubleta et de son histoire. Le principal auteur de cette première période est un autre savant hongrois, Franz Nopcsa (1877-1933), qui publie en 1925 un ouvrage rassemblant ses observations conduites en Albanie dans les premières années du XXe siècle. Nopcsa est un des premiers à rapprocher la jupe-cloche du XXe siècle de trouvailles archéologiques récentes en Espagne, en Crète, en Serbie et en Asie Mineure (figurines et céramiques peintes). Ces analogies lui firent énoncer l’hypothèse d’une grande ancienneté et d’une origine « méditerranéenne » de la xhubleta (fig. 3).

rapprochement entre une statuette néolithique découverte en Serbie et le costume féminin de la tribu Hoti

Fig. 3. Deux illustrations publiées dans Nopcsa 1925 suggérant le rapprochement entre une statuette néolithique découverte en Serbie et le costume féminin de la tribu Hoti (ici dans sa variante pour enfant). L’auteur précise (p. 215) que les « jupes-cloche » (Glockenröcke) « sont en tous points identiques à des jupes connues à travers une figurine en argile néolithique de Serbie et de nombreux bijoux de Mycènes, ainsi qu’à travers des pièces de Crète, et quelques pièces ‘mycéniennes’ de Chypre ».

Cette hypothèse a été largement reprise par les ethnologues albanais qui, à partir des années 1950, se sont intéressés aux « vêtements populaires » (veshje popullore) en voie de disparition, et en particulier à la xhubleta, à l’instar d’un pionnier de l’ethnologie albanaise, Rrok Zojzi (1910-1995). Le vêtement est ainsi devenu, pour reprendre le titre d’un article de 1968, un « témoin de l’ancienneté de notre peuple » (Jubani, 1968). Il faut signaler toutefois qu’aucun document archéologique ou textuel n’est venu corroborer les analogies formelles signalées par Nopcsa entre la xhubleta et les figurines de la Méditerranée et des Balkans préhistoriques. L’étymologie n’est pas d’un grand secours : le mot, parfois orthographié xhupleta jusque dans les années 1950, est sans doute, comme les mots xhup, « veste matelassée », et xhybe, « manteau féminin sans manches », emprunté à l’italien médiéval giubba, lui-même emprunté à l’arabe djubba désignant une « veste de dessous » (d’où provient aussi le français jupe qui désigne au XIIe siècle un pourpoint ajusté sur le buste avant de prendre au XVIIe le sens moderne de vêtement féminin descendant de la taille vers les pieds).

L’intérêt des ethnologues s’est accompagné de la constitution de collections de xhubleta, en particulier par l’Institut de culture populaire, à Tirana, qui en a rassemblé une quarantaine entre 1948 et 1965. À partir du milieu des années 1960, l’usage et les savoir-faire relatifs à la fabrication de la xhubleta ont graduellement disparu et les exemplaires en circulation se sont raréfiés. Conservée dans des collections ethnographiques publiques et mise en scène lors de festivals folkloriques dans les années 1970 et 1980, la xhubleta connaît cependant une nouvelle vie à partir des années 1990, dans le contexte de l’Albanie post-communiste. Des collections privées se constituent et un mouvement de revitalisation apparaît. Dès les années 2000, des projets de sauvegarde et d’inscription sur la liste de l’Unesco sont envisagés. Ils débouchent sur le succès de la candidature de 2022. Luljeta Dano, propriétaire d’une des plus grandes collections privées (60 pièces) et fondatrice en 2009 du Centre anthropologique Xhubleta, figure parmi les promoteurs de la candidature déposée en 2022. D’objet vernaculaire, la xhubleta devient ainsi, selon une trajectoire commune, un objet ethnographique puis un objet patrimonial et touristique.

Cette trajectoire est soutenue, de façon plus ou moins affirmée, par l’hypothèse de l’ancienneté de la xhubleta et de son origine méditerranéenne qui se trouve, elle aussi, revitalisée à partir des années 1990. À cette époque en effet se diffuse une nouvelle version du mythe d’origine des Albanais dans laquelle les Pélasges, population préhistorique des Balkans et de la Méditerranée orientale, sont reconnus comme étant les ancêtres nationaux des Albanais. Mentionnés par les auteurs antiques, les Pélasges n’ont cependant laissé aucun vestige archéologique ni aucune trace écrite. L’hypothèse « méditerranéenne » avancée par Nopcsa et adoptée en l’état par les ethnologues albanais de la période communiste est désormais reprise par les promoteurs du mythe pélasgiste et précisée : la xhubleta est un vêtement pélasgique, ce qui explique son attestation à des périodes anciennes en plusieurs lieux des Balkans et de la Méditerranée, zone d’expansion des Pélasges. Son occurrence aux époques historiques dans les montagnes du nord de l’Albanie est une preuve que les Albanais modernes qui en ont hérité et qui l’ont conservé sont les descendants directs des Pélasges ; elle établit aussi l’Albanie et ses montagnes comme un conservatoire de traits culturels remontant au Néolithique et aux origines de la civilisation en Europe et en Méditerranée. Le rapprochement visuel entre la xhubleta et des figurines de Kliševac (Serbie) ou de la Crète minoenne fait partie des arguments avancés par les auteurs pélasgistes et se retrouve dans plusieurs ouvrages récents (fig. 4).

Planche extraite de l’ouvrage Les Pélasges, fondateurs de la civilisation mondiale, publié à Tirana en 2009

Fig. 4. Planche extraite de l’ouvrage Les Pélasges, fondateurs de la civilisation mondiale, publié à Tirana en 2009 par Ali Eltari, qui attribue aux Pélasges des vestiges archéologiques de Mycènes et de la Crète. La légende de l’image de la « déesse aux serpents », en haut à gauche, précise que « le vêtement de l’ancienne déesse de Crète ressemble beaucoup au vêtement de Mirditë [région du nord de l’Albanie] ».

Dano, La déesse Athéna et autres symboles cosmogoniques, 2007

Fig. 5. Couverture de Dano, La déesse Athéna et autres symboles cosmogoniques, 2007 qui reproduit un motif brodé sur une ceinture de xhubleta dans laquelle l’auteur reconnaît la déesse Athéna telle qu’elle apparaît sur des représentations découvertes par H. Schliemann lors des fouilles de Troie : « visage en forme de chouette, grands yeux exorbités, sans jambes ni bras, buste (…) qui descend jusqu’au nombril »

Le problème reste néanmoins celui de l’absence de preuve archéologique ou historique d’un lien entre ces objets et la xhubleta. Certains auteurs ont proposé de contourner cette difficulté en faisant des motifs brodés sur les divers éléments du vêtement un « langage symbolique » transmis au fil du temps et témoignant de la grande ancienneté de la xhubleta. Il serait possible de lire alors les broderies de la xhubleta comme un exposé de conceptions cosmogoniques rapportées aux Pélasges (fig. 5). Une nouvelle difficulté surgit cependant puisque, comme l’a montré Dorina Arapi, les femmes qui fabriquent et portent ces broderies n’y voient pas du tout les mêmes choses. Les interprétations restent donc ouvertes, tandis que la xhubleta entame, avec la reconnaissance de l’Unesco, une nouvelle étape de son existence.

Source

Site Unesco du Patrimoine culturel immatériel : https://ich.unesco.org/fr/USL/la-xhubleta-savoir-faire-artisanat-et-formes-d-utilisation-01880 (consulté le 22 janvier 2025).

Références bibliographiques

Dorina Arapi, « Xhubleta: A heteroglossic visual space of narratives », Contemporary Southeastern Europe 11, n° 1, 2024, p. 38-60.  

Luljeta Dano, Perëndesha Athina dhe simbole të tjera kozmogonike [La déesse Athéna et autres symboles cosmogoniques], Tirana: Ideart. 2007.

Bep Jubani, « Xhubleta. Treguese e lashtësisë së popullit tonë [La xhubleta. Témoin de l’ancienneté de notre peuple] », Konferenca II e studimeve albanologjike [Deuxième congrès d’études albanaises], Tirana: Universiteti i Tiranës, p. 233-245.

Ferencz Nopcsa, Albanien : Bauten. Trachten und Geräte Nordalbaniens [Albanie : constructions, costumes et outils], Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1925.  

Afërdita Onuzi,  Xhubleta. Tirana: Akademia e studimeve albanologjike, 2021.

Rrok Zojzi, « Mbi veshjet tradicionale të popullit tonë [Sur les costumes traditionnels de notre peuple] », Studime historike 4, 1965, p. 143-148. 

Across the Mediterranean and Outside the Law: Narcotics Trafficking in the Eastern Mediterranean during WWII

Kostis Gotsinas

On May 26, 1945, just days after Germany’s surrender and the end of World War II in Europe, two Greek sergeants of the Hellenic Royal Navy were arrested in Alexandria, Egypt, for carrying morphine ampoules in violation of local drug laws. The case itself was not exceptional, as Alexandria was a hub for drug trafficking. However, what made it unusual was the trajectory of the confiscated goods.

Allegedly originating from the Greek State Narcotics Monopoly [Κρατικόν Μονοπώλιον Ναρκωτικών Φαρμάκων], the drugs were obtained by the two sergeants in Volos, a town in Central Greece, through a local pharmacist. While the pharmacist may have legally possessed the substances, it seems the drugs deviated from the rightful distribution channels. Instead, they likely belonged to a batch of narcotics seized by communist-affiliated forces during the armed conflict with governmental and British troops in Athens in December 1944—an event that foreshadowed the impending full-scale civil war. Official reports submitted by the Greek government to the League of Nations and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) detail how the retreating Greek People’s Liberation Army (Ελληνικός Λαϊκός Απελευθερωτικός Στρατός, ΕΛΑΣ) transported northward the seized drugs removed from the State Monopoly building (Fig. 1). This would explain how the morphine ampoules found their way to Volos, though how they ended up in the pharmacist’s possession remains unclear (Fig. 2).

Fig. 1. The building of the Greek State Narcotics Monopoly in Athens, which now houses the Ministry of Health (photograph by the author, February 2024).

Carte montrant la ligne de démarcation entre forces britanniques et grecques

Fig. 2. Map entitled Dividing line between British troops and ELAS, established upon the truce concluded on January 11, 1945 (Source: Η απελευθέρωσις της Ελλάδος και τα μετά ταύτην γεγονότα [The liberation of Greece and the subsequent events], Athens: Army History Directorate, 1973).

Nevertheless, the labels on the cardboard boxes containing the ampoules, as documented by the Egyptian authorities, provide further insight into the drugs’ trajectory. They indicate that the morphine preparations originated from the pharmaceutical plant of C. H. Boehringer Sohn, located in Ingelheim am Rhein in Germany, as well as from the Medical Parks of the Military Districts of Leipzig and Hamburg (Wehrkreis-Sanitätspark IV & X). One could even speculate about the origin of the raw material used to manufacture the morphine solutions, specifically raw opium. Considering that Turkey was one of the major suppliers of opium to European and American pharmaceutical industries from the early 20th century through the 1930s, we could imagine a full circle: Anatolian opium exported to Germany, transformed there into morphine, sent to Greece, and ultimately smuggled to Egypt.

Although we lack evidence for every step of this journey, the broader patterns of narcotics production, distribution, and circulation in the first half of the 20th century emerge clearly: the supply of raw materials by a handful of opium-producing countries—Turkey, Persia, China, India, Bulgaria, Serbia; the central role of pharmaceutical companies based in Germany, France, Britain, Switzerland, or the Netherlands in the production and distribution of substances like opiates and cocaine, alongside short-lived illicit laboratories catering to the black market; and finally, the operations of smuggling networks that were, to varying degrees, organized and structured across the globe, with a focus on the Eastern Mediterranean in our case. If the Interwar period saw a shift from bulkier substances like opium and hashish to “white powders”, the case of the morphine ampoules smuggled to Alexandria—along with similar cases from this period—demonstrates that trafficking routes from Greece to Egypt remained viable and that smuggling expertise continued to be transmitted.

Thus, the story of the vials confiscated in Alexandria at the end of World War II can be interpreted as a tale of dual movements. On the one hand, a physical movement across space and beyond borders, following the maritime routes of illicit trafficking that had developed since the late 19th century—it is no coincidence that the two Greek sergeants transporting the morphine ampoules were aboard a steamship. On the other hand, a movement beyond the confines of legality, as these substances transitioned from legal commodities to war loot and eventually to illegal goods. This narrative underscores the inherent ambivalence of substances labelled as “narcotics” or “drugs”, which can function both as powerful medicines and as potential poisons. The distinction hinges on a fine line, drawn by each country’s legislation that prohibits non-medical drug use while permitting only therapeutic applications.

One might also consider a third movement: the flow of information regarding the narcotics’ disappearance and reappearance, which highlights the implementation of elaborate control mechanisms during the Interwar years and the adoption of new communication technologies. News of the drugs’ disappearance from the State Monopoly warehouse was quickly relayed to the British allies of the Greek government, seeking their assistance in recovering them. Soon, this information travelled through letters and cables to the Allied Headquarters in Italy, then to Washington, and finally to the League of Nations in Geneva. The discovery of the morphine vials in Alexandria set off a second round of communications, as the Egyptian Central Narcotics Information Bureau informed the Opium Section of the international organization on the seizure, as expected. It wasn’t long before the connection was made between the looting of the Greek Narcotics Monopoly warehouse and the smuggling of morphine ampoules in Alexandria. To confirm this connection, Sir Thomas Russell Pasha, director of the Egyptian Central Narcotics Information Bureau, sent two black-and-white photographs to the League of Nations’ Secretariat. The photographs depict the six confiscated cardboard boxes filled with glass ampoules containing morphine preparations (Fig. 3 & 4).

Morphine ampoules seized in Alexandria

Figures 3 & 4: Photographs of the ampoules seized in Alexandria on May 1945 [accompanying “Marc Bay, Director C.N.I.B. to the Director of the Opium Traffic and Social Questions Sections, League of Nations No./CNIB/E/1/2231, Cairo, 31.3.1946”, League of Nations, File R4814-12-43198-387].

Serving as the visual representation—a kind of black-and-white reflection—of the original vials, these images document items that were either destroyed by the Egyptian authorities or perhaps reintroduced into legal pharmaceutical distribution channels. The recent digitisation of the League of Nations’ archives marks a final transformation, converting these paper photographs into digital images. This process of dematerialization means that we are now consulting a reflection of a reflection, unable to hold the tangible evidence of a minor smuggling case that unfolded at the end of World War II.

Archives

League of Nations (Geneva), File R4814/12/42990/387, “Illicit Traffic – Theft of drugs from the State Monopoly Depot, Athens, December 1944”.

Bibliography

Richard Davenport-Hines, The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Social History of Drugs, London: Phoenix Press, 2001.

Kostis Gotsinas, “Το όπιο του λαού: Ιχνηλατώντας τα χαμένα αποθέματα του Κρατικού Μονοπωλίου Ναρκωτικών μετά τα Δεκεμβριανά” [The opium of the people: On the trail of the lost narcotics of the State Monopoly after the events of December 1944 in Athens], in Efi Avdela & Vasso Seirinidou, Για την ιστορία του εγκλήματος και της δικαιοσύνης στην Ελλάδα, 19ος-20ός αιώνας: θεσμοί, πρακτικές, πρόσωπα [For the history of crime and justice in Greece, 19th-20th c.: Institutions, practices, individuals], Athens: Themelio (forthcoming).

Ryan Gingeras, Heroin, Organized Crime, and the Making of Modern Turkey, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Liat Kozma, “White Drugs in Interwar Egypt: Decadent Pleasures, Emaciated Fellahin, and the Campaign against Drugs”, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 33, no. 1, 2013, p. 89-101.

Michael de Ridder, Heroin: Vom Arzneimittel zur Droge, Frankfurt-New York: Campus Verlag, 2000.

The Journey from the Nile to Samos of an Ancient Egyptian Wooden Chest, Together with Another 190 Egyptian Antiquities

Artemis Papatheodorou

Anyone getting the chance to visit the Archaeological Museum at Pythagorio on the island of Samos in the northeast Aegean region of Greece can hardly miss a box-like ancient Egyptian item exhibited in a specially made glass case close to the museum entrance.

Coffre en bois, Egypte ancienne, période tardive
Fig. 1. An Egyptian wooden chest dated to 680-600 BCE in the Archaeological Museum at Pythagorio, Samos Island (Author’s photo, 2021)

According to its label, the box is a wooden chest that used to contain the “canopic” jars of Lady Taheradenisit (= the land of Isis and Horus, her child), and is dated to 680-600 BCE. It is one of a kind in a museum filled with beautiful but expected-to-be-seen ancient Greek artefacts. How comes an ancient Egyptian object found its way to this particular museum? Moreover, when was this chest separated from its mummy and why? And when were the jars removed from within it? Perhaps tomb raiders split the chest and the mummy in the nineteenth century. Or this was the work of the Egyptian authorities. It is hard to know. The same holds true for the jars. Yet, we happen to know more about the journey of this chest from Egypt to Samos. Here’s the story in a nutshell…

On 30 April 1898, Inspector of Education and Director of the Pythagoreion High school Aristomenes Stergioglides (1848-1904) addressed a letter to the Vice-Roy of Egypt Abbas Hilmi II kindly requesting the donation to the Samian museum of artefacts in double or multiple copies in the museums of Egypt. The Council of Ministers of Egypt viewed the request positively and, on 21 October 1898, Victor Loret, Director of the Museum in Giza, offered Samos the wooden chest in question as well as another 190 ancient Egyptian artefacts.

How could this have ever been possible? How and why did it ever cross the mind of Aristomenes Stergioglides to proceed with such a move? Stergioglides had actually lived in Egypt in his youth, between 1866 and 1869. During that time, he had had the chance to visit many archaeological sites and museums, including the Bulaq Museum. It is these youth memories that seem to have sparked his interest in Egyptian antiquities.

Furthermore, this was not an isolated development in the archaeological affairs of Samos. Starting in 1896, the authorities on the island attempted to reshape the local archaeological regime by introducing a new comprehensive law on antiquities. Samos could do this because, although under the Ottomans, it was autonomous and had the right to promulgate its own laws. The person in charge of drafting this new law was no other than Aristomenes Stergioglides. With certain modifications, the draft law of 1896 was adopted as law no. 887 on antiquities two years later, in June 1898, that is, only a couple of months after the request for artefacts had been submitted to the Egyptian government.

Not just this but the acquisition of an Egyptian collection was part of a broader policy of increasing the collections at the Samian museum. In 1895, the Pythagoreion High school had just become the venue of the archaeological museum of the island when it received all antiquities previously hosted at the Archive of the Principality and all ancient coins from the Treasury. This coincided with a campaign aimed at enriching the museum collections with finds from throughout the island and beyond. A committee was set up with a view to collecting antiquities, the Prince, head of the Principality appointed by the Ottoman Sultan, ordered the mayors of the island to collect all antiquities within the area of their jurisdiction while providing guidance on how to do so, and a number of honorary ephors seem to have been designated. The Principality took one more step in the effort to enrich its collections: it elicited donations from Samians living on the island and abroad. Stergioglides appears to have spearheaded this initiative by being the first to donate his collection of ancient objects. Samians who had migrated to lands far and distant, such as Australia, Vladivostok, Egypt, India, Japan, Zanzibar and South Africa, sent artefacts that created a colourful and particularly diverse collection. It is against this background that one should read the request by Stergioglides for ancient Egyptian objects.

There are, however, a couple of problematic aspects that came along with this donation. The first one has to do with the concept of double or multiple “copies.” Nowadays, it is established that all ancient artefacts are unique. Yet, at the turn of the century, even archaeologists and state administrators in the field of archaeology could be more receptive to the notion of double finds. For example, it was not unthought-of for the Ottoman Empire in those years to allow foreign excavators to keep ancient objects that would be considered doubles, even if this violated the Ottoman regulation on antiquities. Greece too already in its first law on antiquities (1834) acknowledged the possibility of coming across double finds (article 77a), which on occasion could also be considered unimportant and redundant to the Greek museums (article 79). Moreover, fast forward to spring 2024, an archaeologist who saw pictures of the wooden chest for the “canopic” jars of Lady Taheradenisit suggested that what we have considered all along to be an original artefact might actually be a forgery. The designs seemed too crude to this expert to be authentic.

Ancient Egyptien chest in Samos archaoelogical museum
Fig. 2. Designs on the chest deemed unauthentic. (Author’s photo, 2021).

Yet, these two points did not seem to have bothered Aristomenes Stergioglides. His priorities were different, for he actually used this and the other 190 artefacts from ancient Egypt to showcase how ancient Egyptian religion and mythology were to be found at the roots of ancient Greek religion and mythology. In other words, Stergioglides’s goal was predominantly educational – befitting as this would be for a museum that was actually hosted in a school. This was, of course, far from the competition for national glory that we see in the case of the most famous museums of that time, such as the British Museum and the Louvre.

 

Further readings

Αθανάσιος Ε. Καλπαξής, «Αρχαιολογία και Πολιτική, Τόμος Ι – Σαμιακά Αρχαιολογικά 1850-1914.» Πανεπιστημιακές Εκδόσεις Κρήτης, 1990.

Artemis Papatheodorou, “Ottoman policy-making in an age of reforms: Unearthing Ottoman archaeology  in the 19th and early 20th centuries.” Unpublished PhD thesis, Oxford University, 2017.

Βασίλειος Χ. Πετράκος, «Δοκίμιο για την Αρχαιολογική Νομοθεσία.» Υπουργείο Πολιτισμού και Επιστημών – Τ.Α.Π. – Δημοσιεύματα του Αρχαιολογικού Δελτίου, αρ. 29, 1982.

Les pérégrinations méditerranéennes et orientales de la Tazza Farnese

Christian Mazet

Une vitrine du Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli conserve l’une des œuvres gréco-romaines les plus raffinées de l’ingéniosité artistique de l’Antiquité : la Tazza Farnese, ou Tasse Farnèse, considérée comme le plus grand camée du monde. Cette agate sardonique incisée et sculptée, produite dans les ateliers de glyptique d’Alexandrie vers la fin du IIe siècle avant notre ère, était probablement destinée dans l’Antiquité à une fonction symbolique, peut-être à la pratique rituelle de la libation comme laisse suggérer sa forme évoquant la phiale des Anciens (figure 1). Elle représente sur une face, qui correspond à la vasque du vase, une scène nilotique sujette à de multiples interprétations, sans doute une allégorie divine de la famille régnante d’Alexandrie, les Ptolémées, et de l’abondance de l’Égypte hellénistique. Au revers du vase se déploie le visage féminisé de Méduse, figure mythologique d’altérité, en un gorgonéion ailé, à la chevelure peuplée de serpents, exécuté à l’intaille. Jouant avec la translucidité des quatre strates de pierre qui constituent le monumental camée, les figures se révèlent ou disparaissent en fonction des jeux de lumière, en de profondes nuances colorées. La Tazza Farnese devait en tout cas constituer un bien particulièrement précieux, performatif et chargé de sens, pour ses premiers propriétaires, utilisateurs et spectateurs. La perforation au centre de l’objet serait moderne.

Figure 1 : Tazza Farnese. Vase en agate sardonique, production alexandrine de la fin du IIe siècle av. J.-C. Ht. 20 cm. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, inv. 27611. Source : MANN

Les chemins successifs qui ont mené le camée d’Alexandrie au IIe siècle avant notre ère à Naples de nos jours sont multiples, et les hypothèses sont nombreuses. Initialement produit et utilisé dans le Delta du Nil, faisant probablement partie du trésor de la cour royale ptolémaïque, l’objet prestigieux aurait pris, à la suite de la conquête romaine de l’Égypte en 31 av. J.-C. par Octave (le future empereur Auguste), la route vers la péninsule italique, entrant à Rome au sein du trésor impérial, suivant ensuite celui-ci à Constantinople jusqu’au début du XIIIe siècle, où il a vraisemblablement été volé lors de la première croisade en 1204. En 1239, en effet, la Tazza semble être en possession de l’empereur des Romains Frédéric II de Suède, un document d’archive le prouve, suggérant que ce dernier aurait acheté à deux marchands un « magnum scutellam de Onichio ». L’objet serait ainsi retourné une première fois en Italie, en Sicile ou en Italie du Sud, avant d’être sans doute revendu en 1253 par l’héritier du trône, Conrad IV de Hohenstaufen, à un seigneur oriental. Autre hypothèse : la Tazza Farnese n’aurait jamais quitté l’Orient. Elle aurait été pillée à Alexandrie en 88 avant notre ère par Mithridate VI du Pont, grand amateur d’art. La dynastie parthe d’Arménie aurait hérité du trésor jusqu’en 637, date à laquelle des troupes musulmanes se sont emparé des richesses de Ctésiphon, cité commerciale située sur la rive gauche du Tibre. Passé par Damas puis entreposé à Bagdad, alors sous le contrôle des Abbassides, le trésor parthe aurait été encore une fois pillé par le conquérant turco‑mongol Tamerlan, en 1393 ou en 1401.

Figure 2 : Dessin persan de la Tasse Farnèse, signé par le calligraphe Muhammad al-Khayyam, vers 430-450. Berlin Staatsbibliothek, Diez-Album – Diez A fol-72, p. 3, n°2.

On retrouve en tout cas la trace du camée dans les décennies 1430-1450, dans la cour timouride de Samarcande, d’Hérat ou Tabriz, où il est reproduit par un dessinateur persan (figure 2). Ensuite, en l’espace de quelques décennies seulement, la Tazza passe de mains en mains. En 1458, elle appartient au roi des Deux-Siciles Alphonse V d’Aragon. Le peintre Agnolo Poliziano, qui la voit et la décrit à Naples, nous apprend que le monarque l’avait achetée pour une somme jugée dérisoire, 2000 ducats, à un marchand génois ou vénitien, qui n’avait su, des mots du monarque « ni la donner, ni la vendre ». A-t-elle été acquise par ce marchand à Constantinople, au moment de la chute de l’Empire romain d’Orient en 1453 ? Ou bien ce marchand était-il un ambassadeur, Alphonse d’Aragon entretenant de longue date des liens diplomatiques avec les cours orientales ? Elle est revendue ou offerte peu de temps après au cardinal vénitien Ludovico Trevisan, qui transmet sa collection à Pietro Barbo, grand collectionneur de gemmes, qui devint pape sous le nom de Paul II en 1464. Elle entre de la sorte dans les collections pontificales avant d’être donnée en 1471 par son successeur, Sixte IV, à Laurent le Magnifique qui en relate l’arrivée dans les collections florentines dans ses Ricordi. Pièce majeure du collectionnisme Renaissance, on dit même que sa face gorgonéenne inspira Léonard de Vinci ains que le Caravage, tous deux ayant traité en peinture le thème de la tête décapitée de Méduse. En 1492, le camée, toujours dans la cour des Médicis, est évalué à 10 000 florins. Il passe successivement dans les collections de la maison Farnèse par le biais de Marguerite d’Autriche, fille de Charles Quint, épouse en premières noces, pour un an seulement, d’Alexandre de Médicis, alors maître de la ville de Florence qui meurt assassiné en 1537. La duchesse de Toscane est rapidement remariée avec le neveu du pape Paul III, Ottavio Farnese. Contrairement à une idée répandue, la Tazza n’a probablement jamais été présente entre les murs du Palais Farnèse de Rome avec l’importante collection médicéenne de sculptures antiques : les premiers inventaires du studiolo de Fulvio Orsini, érudit au service de Ranuccio et Alessandro Farnese, ne la mentionnent pas. Mais elle est cependant attestée à Ortona en 1586, au palais de la famille De Sanctis où Marguerite d’Autriche avait élu résidence, puis à Parme, en 1632, parmi les pièces de la guardarobba ducale.

En 1736 elle quitte le duché de Parme pour être transférée à Naples avec la quasi-totalité de la Collection Farnèse, héritage maternel du duc de Parme et de Plaisance, roi de Naples et de Sicile, Charles III de Bourbon, futur roi d’Espagne, fils ainé de Philippe V et d’Elisabetta Farnese. Un temps au palais de Capodimonte, elle est déplacée en 1777 avec d’autres antiquités du « museo Farnesiano » au palazzo degli Studi qui est alors le siège de l’Università dei Regi Studi, constituant le premier noyau d’un musée royal en devenir. Elle voyage à Palerme entre 1806 et 1817, suivant Ferdinand IV face à l’arrivée des Français et la prise de pouvoir de Joachim Murat, avant de revenir à Naples où elle devient une pièce majeure des collections du jeune musée archéologique, inauguré un an auparavant sous le nom de Real Museo Borbonico.

Déplacée d’Alexandrie à Rome, puis à Constantinople, Palerme peut-être, Samarcande ou Hérat, Naples, puis Rome, Florence, Ortona, Parme, Naples et Palerme encore, et finalement de retour dans la cité parthénopéenne, la Tazza Farnese a connu bien des pérégrinations qui ont considérablement enrichi sa biographie sociale et l’ont érigée comme une œuvre emblématique de l’histoire de l’art, entre Orient et Occident. Si l’exceptionnalité de sa facture lui a permis de survivre à l’évolution des goûts antiquaires, toujours préservée, elle a aussi accompagné sur le temps long divers moments-clés de l’histoire politique méditerranéenne. Présentée en 2022 dans l’exposition temporaire Recycling beauty de la Fondazione Prada à Milan, la merveilleuse Tazza à l’histoire rocambolesque continue de voyager, loin de l’Alexandrie ptolémaïque qui l’a vu naître.

 

Barbanera, Marcello, « Alcune considerazioni su Federico II collezionista di pietre dure e sul destino della Tazza Farnese », Archeologia classica 54, 2003, p. 423-441.

Barreto, Joana, « Dialogues artistiques dans la Méditerranée de la Renaissance : la ‘Tazza Farnese’ de Hérat à Naples », dans D’une rive à l’autre de la méditerranée occidentale. Hier, aujourd’hui et demain, Nîmes, 2017, p. 174-179.

Belozerskaya, Marina, Medusa’s Gaze: The Extraordinary Journey of the Tazza Farnese, Oxford, 2012.

Bertini, Giuseppe, L’inventario di Margherita d’Austria, Turin, 2010.

Brentjes, Burchardt, « The ‘Tazza Farnese’ ant its way to Harãt and Naples », Oriente Moderno, 76.2, 1996, p. 321-324.

Gaspari, Carlo, Le gemme Farnese. Museo archeologico nazionale di Napoli, Naples, 2006.

Jestaz, Bertrand, « Les objets d’art du studiolo Farnèse d’après ses premiers inventaires », MEFRIM 122-2, 2010, p. 253-296.

Pannuti, Ulrico, Museo archeologico nazionale di Napoli. La collezione glittica. II, Rome, 1994.

Pannuti, Ulrico, « Formazione, incremento e vicende dell’antica raccolta glittica medicea », dans Il tesoro di Lorenzo il Magnifico. Repertorio delle gemme e dei vasi, Florence, 1980, p.7-8.

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